


Fuck That [x77]

by ConvenienceStoreMusical



Series: Domestic Bandom AU [2]
Category: Skrillex (Musician)
Genre: Forever 21, Gen, free him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 23:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6133270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenienceStoreMusical/pseuds/ConvenienceStoreMusical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skrillex becomes the tool of his own demise.<br/>AU where Skrillex works in the Forever 21.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fuck That [x77]

Times were hard. What was even harder was the way Forever 21 insisted their shirts be folded. Skrillex sighed as he kept on with the mindless task, muscle memory begging to go back to the sloppy fold-over he was so used to.

Capitalism had stripped Skrillex of everything yet again. Even his name was taken away- that was to say, his stage name. Here, in the depths of retail hell, he was now known as Sonny.

He had only started working here two months ago. Since then, every creative bone in Skrillex's body had dried out and become brittle. Now his metaphorical bones had metaphorical osteoporosis. All of this was due largely to the fact Skrillex had to listen to mainstream music all day long.

Top 40 pop songs rang in his ears annoyingly as he did the most boring jobs on Earth. At first Skrillex coped by imagining remixing these songs. This lead to Skrillex being taken off register duty when he kept composing with the cash register instead of ringing up customers.

What also oppressed his metaphorically creative-deficient bones was the fact that Skrillex had to dress like a poser. No more grungy tee shirts and distressed jeans- he now had to wear clean clothes, especially from the store. Now he looked like a poser 24/7. The whipped cream on the top of this bullshit cake was yesterday Karen, his manager, told Skrillex he had to start washing his hair or become fired.

The fifth Vampire Weekend song came on and Skrillex repressed his tears. It felt like Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij were personally jeering at him at this point. A forming lump in his throat convinced him it was time to go on break. Skrillex did his best to make sure the remaining shirts he was folding looked half-decent. He went to the checkout to tell another girl on the floor he was out to the break room, leaving as she was protesting this was their busiest hour. It sucked to be her, but not as much as it sucked to be Skrillex.

The break room and the managerial office were essentially the same room, separated by a sliding partition. Skrillex helped himself to an unclaimed bottle of Sunny D and flopped himself into one of the four folding chairs around a card table. The ambiance sucked, but was aesthetically pleasing to the man. It was grungy, it was _laissez-faire_ and showed that corporatism dug its nails into the common working man. _'Just like working in the music industry'_ , he thought. But then, the music industry let him wear the same t-shirt for a week straight.

Skrillex tried to relax but found himself missing a vital part to this very depressing yet enlightening scene. What completed the atmosphere was Karen typing away on her laptop, toiling at her Farmville game and whatever else managers did. The typing was absent however, and it gave Skrillex an alarming sense of peace that he wasn't just a cog of machinist corporatism. 

Getting up from his seat and taking a cautious sip of Sunny D, Skrillex knocked on the partition. No answer, not even a scuffle of sensible shoes. He poked his head around the corner, which usually was a bad move because it counted as 'invading' Karen's office. This time there was no Karen to punish him, just her laptop sitting open on her desk surrounded by paperwork Skrillex didn't feel like analyzing. Taking a step closer to look at her laptop, it seemed she had left just recently. The screen hadn't gone to a screensaver, and her email was open with some invitation to lunch by the Justice store's store manager. _'Gross,'_ was Skrillex's primary thought.

As he turned to leave, something glinted in the corner of his eye, among the paperwork. Curiosity took full reign --there was no way he could get caught at this point-- he stepped closer and shuffled through the papers. It was a USB drive- fairly innocuous for a desk. There was a sticky note and label printed on it, the type that came from the cheap label-makers in the Michaels store across the road from the mall. **MUSIC #4** read the label, with the sticky note adding **REPLACE CURRENT SET** with yesterday's date. Skrillex could feel the lump in his throat forming again. He had to see what terrors would await him this time.

Skrillex jammed the drive into the appropriate USB slot. When the computer opened up the drive to show it's files, Skrillex paled from his normal "wallpaper paste" whiteness to "ultraviolent nothingness" whiteness. It was just an assortment of mp3 files. _Lisztomania_ by Phoenix, _Sleepyhead_ by Passion Pit, and more Matt  & Kim songs than he could count first caught his eye. It sickened him- while some of these artists were decent, all of these songs were just... _incomplete_. No hard beats, no stuttering, no wubs. 

An idea seized him then. This was a chance to save himself and to make the Leviathan of Capitalism eat out of his hand for once. Skrillex took a glance at the laptop clock- Karen must have a few minutes more until her lunch was over. It was enough. Gently he set his Sunny D on the desk, ready to strike. Skrillex's fingers slammed onto the keyboard as though it was a piano, smashing key after key in a clacking plastic cacophony. A quick UTorrent download and a couple of his songs secured themselves on the hard-drive, the first ones he could grab off the Pirate Bay. An afterthought prompted him to throw in some Deadmau5 songs; people could get suspicious if too many of his songs were in this playlist of crap.

The door of the breakroom swung open and Skrillex froze, yanking the USB out as fast as he could and shutting down the laptop. Sensible shoes clattered on the tile, and 5 steps later Karen came into her "office."

"Sonny," she said testily, "what are you doing in my office?" Skrillex broke into a sweat.

"Sorry Karen I was just... looking for you. I had a question about..." Skrillex paused for a moment, panicking before grabbing the Sunny D off the desk. "This! Someone keeps leaving unlabeled food in the fridge and-"

"That's not my problem," she said flatly. "Get out." Skrillex skedaddled out of the room, Sunny D in tow back into the jungle depths of the clothing store. Chugging his not-orange juice in victory (and rather grossly), he congratulated himself on this small triumph. He went back to where he originally was stationed, happy enough to actually refold all of the shirts. Also he really had to avoid the checkout girl who was sure to give him a verbal lashing. The current song couldn't even keep him down as he anticipated that the next day some _real_ music would play.

After the song, a long pause came from the speakers. Apparently the USB drive next to Karen's computer prompted the manager to switch to the new list, at least, that's how Skrillex interpreted it. He waited with bated breath, shirt in hand, until a familiar song came on. A shake of a tambourine, some electronic beats. Skrillex immediately recognized it as one of his littler known masterpieces, _Fuck That_. He reveled in every second until the bridge would hit, in which the word 'fuck' would be said a total of 77 times. It was the biggest middle finger he could give to this small clothing store in a midwest mall. 

**F--- THAT, F--- F--- THAT**

Did... did he mishear that? His shirts fell out of his hands as the censored song began to play, incessantly. What could have happened? Did he accidentally grab a _clean_ version when he was torrenting? His agony weighed down on him as **F--- THAT, F--- F--- THAT** reverberated in his bones and his soul. He barely registered Karen's sensible shoes clattering towards him. She must have figured out he had tampered with her computer, either through the USB or the fact he didn't have time to erase the browser history. In this moment, Skrillex made the decision to bail, and live through hell another day. He high-tailed it out of the Forever 21 as fast as he could, Karen's voice trailing after him as he escaped into the consumerist afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> Moral of the story: don't torrent. Don't work at Forever 21. Don't have a boss named Karen.
> 
> For Augustine, who wanted this to be a thing; and for Alyster who encouraged this nonsense.
> 
> Mr. Sonny "Skrillex""DR-DR-DR-DROPTHEBASS""" Moore please don't sue me.
> 
> Next episode, coming never: Deadmau5 brings in Meowingtons to get fitted for a birthday party, and Skrillex gets fired for having a cat shed and claw up a lot of shirts.


End file.
